4 ms·

It seems that the media's focus on 'start sponsored trolling' is starting to result in hysteria. You can already see people beginning to insist others are 'trol

It seems that the media's focus on 'start sponsored trolling' is starting to result in hysteria. You can already see people beginning to insist others are 'trolls' of this sort seemingly based on nothing other than a disagreement of opinions. It would seem that the more responsible way to handle things would be to try to educate people on media rather than aiming towards something that seems to be encouraging people to think that anybody who disagrees with them might be a shill. In particular it seems there are just two issues that could help people detect BS so much more easily: - 1. Avoid emotional responses. If you see something that tugs at the heart strings, or hear of an awful story, there's a good chance it's fake or an outlier event being portrayed as something regular. This [1] is one of the most famous examples. What that's actually an image of is not cosmetic testing on animals, as it was portrayed as in social media, but the spaying/neutering of a large number of cats rescued from abusive conditions. The reason I say there is a "good chance" it's fake is because appeals to emotion are specifically geared at provoking a response people might not otherwise engage in. - 2. Hold new things you expect to be true to the same scrutiny you'd hold new things you expect to be false. This one is really hard, but exploiting people by confirming their biases is perhaps even more effective (and dangerous) than exploiting emotional response. And a subpoint of this issue is that while honest mistakes are indeed a part of life, when there is a pattern of honest mistakes - they're probably not honest mistakes. Granted educating people on critical thinking and emotional control is going to be an uphill battle, to put it mildly, but I think it's a wiser strategy than instead engaging in behavior that's predictably going to result in people calling each other shills. In an era of increasing political polarization, this is doubly dangerous. [1] - https://i.imgur.com/SIMvJ6Z.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SIMvJ6Z.jpg

dnomad 8y ago
It's funny because your comment is itself textbook hysteria. You provide absolutely no evidence at all that any of your claims are true. You attribute behavior to some undefined group of "people", and then insist that this behavior is being driven by another shadowy group ("the media") and this leads you to the very strange conclusion that the "media" is focusing too much on shills.
matt4077 8y ago
These suggestions are impossible too follow: you can't validate any and each new information from first principle, i. e. without regard for a source's reputation, your previews experience, etc. First, because it's impossible to actually validate anything. If you read a quote from a politician, you can only evaluate the quote's accuracy by considering the publisher's track record, and the politician's previous behaviour. Videos and audio are often not available, and can possibly be faked rather well now or in the near future. Even if some sort of proof were possible, the workload would far outstrip any single person's capabilities. Analogy: You don't ask your spouse for collateral when they want to borrow your car. Because you know and trust them, and they are invested in a good, continuing relationship with you. It's different if a stranger comes up to you on the street and asks for your car keys. That's why societies' have come up with a sort of collaborative verification: get together as a group that trusts each other and split the workload. Or even allow people to specialize, and pay them for it. You can do your best to verify some subset of their work to assess their reliability. The New York Times, as but one example: they have a 150+ year record of processes and individual commitment to get their facts straight, and they are open about their failures. Publishing stories about "XYZ runs a ring of pedophiles from a DC pizza parlor" would destroy their value almost instantly, so their incentives are aligned with yours.
- testies 8y ago
  So if the NYTimes is such a bastion of credibility, how do you explain this newsdiff? This isn't just outright slanted, the article was originally neutral and somebody decided it needed to be edited from a factual report into a heroic tale in the battle for social justice: https://archive.is/t4EVf https://archive.is/t4EVf This is textbook propaganda, so perfect you could use it as classroom material. Furthermore, we hear so much about social media filter bubbles, but it doesn't seem to occur to contemporary reporters that if they write stories based on what they see and hear on their own social feed, it is going to be equally skewed and subject to a massive preselected availability bias of their own making. If you wanted to effectively manipulate the news, you'd organize massive protests and disruptions right outside every news station... Well, now this is the default mode for much of what you hear. Every time you read any story about online sentiment that is not explicitly statistical and honest and precise in its conclusions, it's pretty much bullshit from top to bottom for this reason. Now, before you say this doesn't apply to "real" news in the "real" world, I remind you that the topics they haven't been able to shut up about for 5 minutes is Trump's tweeting, Russian trolls, and the online anger of a supposedly pervasive alt-right, and that they blame everything from Brexit to Charlottesville on that. This includes people who are frequently misquoted, misconstrued and misrepresented at a level that, if it isn't malice, is chronic and incurable professional incompetence. Their incentives are not aligned with mine, because to me, truth and skepticism are foundational values.
SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
I really agree with this. As hysterics increase, so does the risk over-correction - in the form of overreaching censorship, draconian laws, etc. I can't help but think that we ought to bring philosophy, formal logic, reasoning, and rhetoric courses down from select majors in higher education, and into primary education. And it ought to start young.
jpindar 8y ago
This seems like a good place to mention the existence of skeptics.stackexchange.com

dnomad 8y ago

It's funny because your comment is itself textbook hysteria. You provide absolutely no evidence at all that any of your claims are true. You attribute behavior to some undefined group of "people", and then insist that this behavior is being driven by another shadowy group ("the media") and this leads you to the very strange conclusion that the "media" is focusing too much on shills.

matt4077 8y ago

These suggestions are impossible too follow: you can't validate any and each new information from first principle, i. e. without regard for a source's reputation, your previews experience, etc. First, because it's impossible to actually validate anything. If you read a quote from a politician, you can only evaluate the quote's accuracy by considering the publisher's track record, and the politician's previous behaviour. Videos and audio are often not available, and can possibly be faked rather well now or in the near future. Even if some sort of proof were possible, the workload would far outstrip any single person's capabilities. Analogy: You don't ask your spouse for collateral when they want to borrow your car. Because you know and trust them, and they are invested in a good, continuing relationship with you. It's different if a stranger comes up to you on the street and asks for your car keys. That's why societies' have come up with a sort of collaborative verification: get together as a group that trusts each other and split the workload. Or even allow people to specialize, and pay them for it. You can do your best to verify some subset of their work to assess their reliability. The New York Times, as but one example: they have a 150+ year record of processes and individual commitment to get their facts straight, and they are open about their failures. Publishing stories about "XYZ runs a ring of pedophiles from a DC pizza parlor" would destroy their value almost instantly, so their incentives are aligned with yours.

testies 8y ago
So if the NYTimes is such a bastion of credibility, how do you explain this newsdiff? This isn't just outright slanted, the article was originally neutral and somebody decided it needed to be edited from a factual report into a heroic tale in the battle for social justice: https://archive.is/t4EVf https://archive.is/t4EVf This is textbook propaganda, so perfect you could use it as classroom material. Furthermore, we hear so much about social media filter bubbles, but it doesn't seem to occur to contemporary reporters that if they write stories based on what they see and hear on their own social feed, it is going to be equally skewed and subject to a massive preselected availability bias of their own making. If you wanted to effectively manipulate the news, you'd organize massive protests and disruptions right outside every news station... Well, now this is the default mode for much of what you hear. Every time you read any story about online sentiment that is not explicitly statistical and honest and precise in its conclusions, it's pretty much bullshit from top to bottom for this reason. Now, before you say this doesn't apply to "real" news in the "real" world, I remind you that the topics they haven't been able to shut up about for 5 minutes is Trump's tweeting, Russian trolls, and the online anger of a supposedly pervasive alt-right, and that they blame everything from Brexit to Charlottesville on that. This includes people who are frequently misquoted, misconstrued and misrepresented at a level that, if it isn't malice, is chronic and incurable professional incompetence. Their incentives are not aligned with mine, because to me, truth and skepticism are foundational values.

SmirkingRevenge 8y ago

I really agree with this. As hysterics increase, so does the risk over-correction - in the form of overreaching censorship, draconian laws, etc. I can't help but think that we ought to bring philosophy, formal logic, reasoning, and rhetoric courses down from select majors in higher education, and into primary education. And it ought to start young.

jpindar 8y ago

This seems like a good place to mention the existence of skeptics.stackexchange.com